Page 1 of Her Mountain Man Secret
1
ISABELLE
I restmy head against the window, letting the hum of the engine fill the silence. It’s dark outside the truck, but I can still make out the shape of the mountains, their giant shadows looming around us. I’m used to seeing them from far away, distant silhouettes against the Denver skyline. But now, they’re close enough to touch.
I glance at my dad. His hands are tight on the wheel, eyes fixed on the road ahead. He hasn’t said a word for the past hour. Dad always gets quiet when he’s stressed, and he’s been stressed as heck all week, ever since he got the call about the inheritance. It turns out an old buddy of his, Ralph Kramer, passed away and left him a log cabin in his will.
Well, technically, half a log cabin.
The inheritance is split between my dad and a man called Wyatt. We’re traveling to the cabin to meet up with him, and my dad doesn’t seem thrilled about it. When I asked if he knew Wyatt, he told me they were old friends who lost touch. But he said it through gritted teeth, like the words pained him.
“Nearly there,” Dad says glumly from beside me.
“Great!”
The cabin is located in Cherry Hollow, my dad’s hometown. I guess it’s kind of my hometown too, but I have no memory of it; Dad moved us to the suburbs of Denver when I was a baby and we never left. I even stayed for college, majoring in finance at the University of Denver. I graduated in May. Now it’s August, and I’m still no closer to finding a job or figuring out what the heck I want to do with my life. That’s partly why I offered to come see the cabin with Dad—it sounded better than browsing endless job listings.
“Have you ever seen the cabin in person?” I ask, trying to stretch out the cramp in my leg. We’ve been driving for hours, and my butt is completely numb.
“No,” Dad says. “Never seen it. Ralph bought the place after I left Cherry Hollow.”
Before I can reply, he curses and hangs a last-minute left onto a steep, twisting path leading up the mountain. Once he’s satisfied we’re going the right way, I ask, “Do you think Wyatt will want to sell the place?”
“Probably. Wyatt already has his own cabin out here—doesn’t need another one.”
It’s the first nugget of information he’s given me about the mysterious Wyatt, and I tentatively press for more. “How well did you know him?”
Dad grunts. “Knew him better than anybody once. But that was a long time ago. Haven’t seen him in over twenty years.”
“What about Ralph?” I ask with a frown. “You must have been close if he left you half the cabin in his will.”
He doesn’t answer right away, like he’s mulling it over. Eventually, he says, “We were all close back then. Wyatt and I joined the fire department at the same time, and Ralph was our captain. He didn’t have a wife or kids. Think he saw us almost like sons.”
My dad doesn’t talk much about his past as a firefighter; he gave it up after we moved to Denver. As a single dad with a newborn baby, he couldn’t race off to emergencies at all hours anymore. Instead, he became a mechanic and opened his own auto repair shop on the outskirts of the city. I have so many childhood memories of watching my dad work, his hands stained with oil as he taught me the names of all the car parts. He always called me his “little helper,” even though all I did was watch. We’ve always been close. But otherwise, my dad keeps to himself. He’s a bit of a grump and doesn’t have much time for people, so it’s hard to imagine a period when he had two close friends in his life.
“How come you lost touch with them?” I ask, feeling a pang of sadness for him.
“Just life, I guess.”
He says it quickly, like he’s trying to shut down my questions. I can sense there’s more to it than just “life,” but Dad’s never been great at talking about his feelings, so we continue up the mountain path in silence. After a few minutes, we take a left onto a dirt track through the forest, the truck’s headlights illuminating a thicket of fir trees before finally landing on a log cabin in the distance.
“This is it,” Dad says, braking slowly as we approach.
The cabin is much bigger than I expected, with a wrap-around porch and a wood-shingle roof. There’s a large pickup outside, and Dad parks beside it, the porch light flickering on automatically at the movement.
“Look at this place!” I say brightly, smiling at him. “It’s huge.”
He grunts in agreement. “Thought it would be smaller.” He leans closer to the windshield and squints at the porch. “Looks a little shabby in places. Might need some fixing up before we can sell it.”
“Let’s go see inside.” I unbuckle my seatbelt and open the door, stepping out into the crisp night air. But my dad doesn’t move. He’s still gripping the steering wheel like a lifeline, his gaze dark and apprehensive as he looks at the cabin.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, I’m coming.”
He shifts slightly in his seat but doesn’t get out of the truck. I lean my head back in, reaching out to touch his shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
